IH 201 
118 

opy 1 




0 028 940 772 8 



PROCEEDINGS 

OF THE 

EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING 

OF THE 

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION 



HELD AT 

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 

DECEMBER 29, 30, 31, 1908. 



THE ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT: 
THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY 



BY 

PROFESSOR HUGO MtFNSTERBERG 
# 



[Reprinted from the Philosophical Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 2, March, 1909.] 



[Reprinted from the Philosophical Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 2, March, 1909.] 



2>tt 2.01 

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHI- 
CAL ASSOCIATION: THE EIGHTH ANNUAL 
MEETING, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVER- 
SITY, DECEMBER 29-31, 1908. 

Report of the Secretary. 

THE eighth annual meeting of the American Philosophical 
Association was held at Baltimore, Md., in the Johns Hop- 
kins University, on December 29, 30, and 31, 1908, in affiliation 
with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 
The following report of the Treasurer for the year ending De- 
cember 31, 1908, was read and accepted : 

Frank Thilly, Secretary and Treasurer, in Account with 
the American Philosophical Association. 



Receipts. 

Balance on hand December 31, 1907 $261.17 

Received from dues and sale of Proceedings . 194.00 

Interest 9.80 

$464.97 

Expenses. 

Proceedings of Association for 1907 $ 18.65 

Cornell Smoker 17.75 

Stationery and Printing , 3°-93 

Stamps , I 9«7 2 

Clerical Aid and Stenographer 17.35 

Telegrams 2.60 

$107.00 

Balance on hand, December 31, 1908. 357-97 
Total $464.97 

The following officers were elected for the ensuing year : 



President, Professor John Grier Hibben, of Princeton University ; 
Vice-President, Professor James H. Tufts, of the University of 
Chicago ; Secretary -Treasurer, Professor Frank Thilly, of Cornell 
University ; Members of the Executive Committee (for two years), 

164 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. 



Professor Charles M. Bakewell, of Yale University, and Professor 
F. J. E. Woodbridge, of Columbia University. 

Upon recommendation of the Executive Committee four new 
members were elected : Dr. G. W. Cunningham, of Middlebury 
College ; Professor Bruce R. Payne, of the University of Virginia ; 
Professor James B. Pratt, of Williams College ; and Professor 
Norman Wilde, of the University of Minnesota. 

It was voted that the place of the next meeting be selected by 
the Executive Committee, the Association expressing its prefer- 
ence for New Haven. 

Professor Gardiner, Chairman of the Committee appointed at 
the last meeting to consider the advisability of appropriating 
funds for the publication of works of early American philosophers, 
submitted a report, the following recommendations of which were 
adopted after discussion and amendment: (i) That we cooperate 
with Columbia University, the University being willing, to get 
Johnson's " Elements of Philosophy" published under the 
auspices of the Association ; (2) that a Committee be appointed 
whose function it shall be to encourage similar publications by the 
various institutions concerned, the Committee being empowered 
to authorize the use of the name of the Association in the publi- 
cation of such works of American philosophers as it may deem 
suitable ; (3) that this Committee undertake the preparation of a 
complete bibliography of (early) American philosophy ; (4) that 
the sum of $75 be appropriated for the use of the Committee in 
the preparation of this bibliography and in the work of inciting 
further publications. The present Committee, consisting of Pro- 
fessors Gardiner, Royce, and Riley, was chosen to carry out these 
recommendations and authorized to increase the number of its 
members. 

The following resolutions, offered by Professor Hibben, were 
adopted : 

Resolved, That the American Philosophical Association ap- 
point a Committee of five members to act in conference with 
similar Committees of other learned bodies in preparing and 
presenting to the Carnegie Institution in Washington a memorial 
asking that properly approved projects of historical, archaeolog- 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 166 

ical, philosophical, linguistic, literary, and artistic investigation 
and publication be admitted, in the apportioning of grants, to a 
recognition similar to that given approved projects of research 
in the physical and natural sciences. 

Resolved, That the Committee be authorized to take such other 
steps as may seem advisable to further this end. 

President Miinsterberg appointed as members of this Com- 
mittee : Professor Hibben, Professor Baldwin, President Butler, 
Professor Creighton, and Professor James. 

Upon motion of Professor Baldwin it was resolved that this 
Association urgently request the Committee on Ways and Means, 
or other body having the matter in charge, that the present duty 
on scientific books printed in English be removed. 

Upon motion of Professor Royce the President was requested 
to appoint a Committee to consider the feasibility of the Plan for 
a Comparative Lexicon, suggested by Dr. Husik. President 
Miinsterberg appointed Professors Royce, Gardiner, Newbold, 
Husik, and Hammond as members of this Committee. 

It was voted to tender the thanks of the Association to Johns 
Hopkins University for its hospitality. 

The following are abstracts of papers read at the meeting : 

The Problem of Beauty. Hugo Munsterberg. 

[The President's Address, which appears in this number 
(March, 1909) of the Philosophical Review.] 

Concerning a Philosophical Platform, Karl Schmidt. 

Philosophy may be considered from the point of view of evo- 
lution ; but this flux, to be made intelligible, must be broken up 
into definite stages from which and toward which the evolution 
proceeds. Whilst this conception of definite stages is, though 
necessary, purely auxiliary, if evolution is the controlling idea, it 
is the predominating one if any action is required ; and my thesis 
is that philosophy is called upon to act, which I show in typical 
instances, and that from this demand flows the necessity for phi- 
losophy to take a definite form, which must be comparatively 
invariant. But a definite form of philosophy as such, not of indi- 
vidual convictions, means a recognized doctrine and school. The 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



second part of the paper makes suggestions of what could be 
done to realize such a condition in philosophy. 

The Postulates of a Self-critical Epistemology. E. G. 

Spaulding. 

[This paper will be published in full in an early number of the 
Philosophical Review.] 

A Substitute for MilPs Methods in an Introductory Course. 

Frances H. Rousmaniere. 

The fact that no datum has any meaning whatever except on 
the assumption that we know how to describe it correctly, is fun- 
damental for inductive logic. In scientific work this assumption 
rests on theories as to the proper tests (for instance, for purity of 
substances and accuracy of measurements), and upon the principles 
already believed to hold in the field investigated. Thus all in- 
duction is virtually deduction, our earliest uncriticised generaliza- 
tions being no true induction, but the expression of a habit of 
expectation. A second fundamental consideration is, that an 
especial kind of presupposition underlies any generalization con- 
sciously made on the basis of particular experience, — a presuppo- 
sition as to the degree to which any example of a field is repre- 
sentative of the field as a whole, that is, as to the relative uni- 
formity of the field. The study of Mill's methods crowds out, 
through lack of time, these more important questions, and classi- 
fications of scientific method based on these may well be substi- 
tuted for the canons in an elementary course in logic. 

A classification on the basis of the interrelation of theory and 
data will, among other things, bring out the difference between 
the described, and so already generalized and lifeless, experiment 
of the text-books and the experiment for the investigator as we 
find it in biographies and reports. A classification of scientific 
methods will show that a carefully selected group of representa- 
tives is chosen where the field has different kinds within it, a 
group of examples taken as they may come where there is be- 
lieved to be some chance that a few individuals are eccentric ; that 
averages, means, etc., are artificially constructed representatives ; 
and that imperfections of technique complicate the question of the 
amount that must be tested in a given field. 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 168 



Knowledge of Persons and Religious Faith. C. H. Hayes. 

Knowledge dealing with things, forces, and natural laws is 
alone definitely considered in logic ; but we have also, as a 
matter of every-day experience, knowledge of men and women, 
which we use effectively and find of vital interest. The method 
of this knowledge of persons appears to be a delicate induction, 
which forms reliable conclusions from comparatively few, but sig- 
nificant, data. 

The hypothesis made by religious faith is that it knows a per- 
sonal God. Criticisms upon this commonly assume that all 
knowledge must conform to the canons of natural science, and 
that we cannot work up from scientific generalizations to the idea 
of an absolutely supreme Being. As, however, religion seeks, 
not Energy, Motion, or Law, but God, possessing infinitely 
higher and more definite reason, will, and love than human per- 
sons possess, it may be possible to know him in ways like those 
in which we know persons, by an induction even more delicate 
than that by which we know men. And this is what religion 
supposes it does. Thus Christian faith makes a great hypothesis, 
which it finds verified in part by observation of nature and of 
man's reason and conscience, more fully by the experiment of 
living according to it, and completely by God's revelation of him- 
self in the history of the Hebrew people and in the appearing 
of Jesus Christ. This revelation is given through divine acts, 
comparatively few in number, but significant of God's presence 
and nature. 

This view makes faith not radically unlike science, though 
clearly distinguished from it by the difference in the objects of 
the two ; and it respects religion's own account of itself, that it 
is the knowledge as well as the love of God. Thorough study 
of our knowledge of persons would give a proper basis for criti- 
cising the possibility of religious knowledge, and would in itself 
make clearer an actually existing realm of mental activity which 
as yet lies outside our accepted psychology and logic. 

Naturalistic and Theoretic Thinking. E. S. Steele. 

Science, beginning with naturalistic data, endeavors not to annul 
but to explain them. The relation between the naive apprehen- 



169 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



sion and the explanation is similar to that between thought in fig- 
urative clothing and plain thought. This again is paralleled in 
some wise by thought distinguished as sensuous and as pure. 
All thought, however, is sensuous to the extent that it requires 
sensuous embodiment. Sense matter as clothing of pure thought 
may be called intrinsic embodiment, since its office is em- 
bodiment and nothing more. Figurative representation, on the 
other hand, is extrinsic embodiment, or symbol, since it must have 
a primary meaning before it can be a symbol. It is alone through 
symbols that non-extended objects are conceived. 

The naturalistic thinker accepts the world in its every-day 
sensuous dress ; the theorist endeavors to separate the truth from 
its guises. The distinction between the classes, however, is only 
relative, since theoretic thinking is at first very crude. The im- 
perfection of theory, moreover, is shown by its frequent disagree- 
ments. These arise from the fact that in seeking new and more 
interior symbols different minds choose differently. Theorists 
are of two classes, the scientific and the speculative. In true 
scientific thinking the embodiment is held in strict subjection to 
the fact ; in speculative thinking, the subject-matter is accom- 
modated to a conception form which may be called a schema. 
The most imposing systems are apt to have for a schema some 
aspect of the logical function, as in Spinoza and Hegel ; an ex- 
ample of a different kind is afforded by the " will and idea" of 
Schopenhauer. All speculative systems are essentially symbolic 
creations, vast figures of speech. They have no scientific value, 
but like other symbols may serve as vehicles of truth. The only 
philosophy which has a scientific value is a critical dogmatism ; 
dogmatism, because it holds fast to the great self-sufficing insights ; 
critical, because, on the one hand, it clears away naturalistic crudi- 
ties, and, on the other, keeps free from schematic perversions. 

Paradoxes in Realistic Epistemology. Bernard C. Ewer. 

A paradox, philosophically speaking, is an apparent self-con- 
tradiction which, if genuine, would disqualify the theory contain- 
ing it. Dualistic realism contains paradoxes which are regarded 
by many as destructive of consistency. In particular there are 
two which may be called the spatial and temporal paradoxes. 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 170 



The former is the puzzle, how ' what is evidently one reality 
should be in two places at once, both in outer space and in a 
person's mind.' The latter is the ' lateness ' of perception, due 
to the fact that the physical and physiological processes involved 
occupy a certain length of time. These paradoxes are not sus- 
tained by reflection as permanent theoretic inconsistencies. In 
the case of the first, when we state the facts of perception with 
precision we do not say or imply that the same object is found 
'in two places at once.' The distinctions made by dualistic 
realism between objective consciousness and real object are not 
self-contradictory. The second difficulty, i. e., the alleged incon- 
sistency between the apparent presence and the real pastness of 
the object as perceived, disappears if we recognize that percep- 
tion, as a cognitive fact, does not imply the strict temporal pres- 
entness of the object. The pragmatic presence of the latter in 
perception is quite compatible with its temporal pastness ; there 
is no contradiction in saying that we perceive the object as it was. 
In brief, the account of perception given by dualistic realism con- 
tains, with reference to spatial or temporal characteristics, no 
theoretic inconsistency. 

The Present Meaning of Idealism. Ernest Albee. 

It seems fair to assume that neither materialism proper nor 
subjective idealism is an adequate philosophical theory, — the 
former, because it explains the relatively known in terms of an 
unknowable ; the latter, because it gives no adequate account o 
objective reality. After the first too rapid success of Hegelianism 
in Germany and the thorough-going reaction which followed, the 
' back to Kant ' movement in its various forms tended to stereo- 
type certain Kantian conceptions which were far from expressing 
the real logic of the idealistic position. These should be carefully 
examined before one presses the claims of idealism against those 
of realism. The Kantian conception of the a priori involves the 
difficulties of the older rationalism and, to a certain extent, those 
of subjective idealism. The progressive philosopher to-day, like 
the scientist, is looking, not for principles ' independent of all ex- 
perience,' but rather for principles that will express adequately 
the various forms of interdependence within experience. The 



i7i 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



categories of thought are always in the making, and their evolu- 
tion is always determined by teleological considerations. Nothing 
in experience can be ' merely given,' and as little can the form of 
experience be supplied by the mind. What is ' given ' is nothing 
less than experience itself as a living process, which must be 
treated as organic. If we rule out things-in-themselves as mean- 
ingless, since by hypothesis they are unknowable, and recog- 
nize that subject and object have no meaning apart from their 
functional relation to each other, what right have we to assume 
that space and time are merely phenomenal ? They are forms, 
not merely of our intuition, but of concrete experience itself, ob- 
jectively regarded, and therefore forms of the only reality with 
which we have to deal. This, naturally, is not to say that the 
mere space-time aspect of things exhausts the character of even 
physical reality, — for science, like philosophy, presupposes a 
permanent system of relations, — but it should be recognized that 
the technical abstractions of certain philosophical disciplines prove 
the unreality of space and (particularly) of time as little as do the 
instrumental abstractions of various other sciences. 

The Notion of the Implicit in Logic. J. E. Creighton. 

This paper is primarily a discussion of Baldwin's canons of 
Actuality and Continuity as stated in the first volume of Thought 
and Things. It is maintained that the criterion of reality set up 
by the first canon, — actual presence, — cannot be literally applied 
to a developing logical series, which is a progression of functions 
and meanings, and not one of existences. Moreover, Continuity 
cannot mean mere psychical or temporal continuousness, but 
must be based on some kind of identity between the earlier and 
later, — i. e. t some form of the implicit. This can be made intel- 
ligible only when the development of knowledge is regarded 
teleologically, as a system of functions through which the rational 
ends which constitute the mind are progressively realized. Bald- 
win's discussions of the nature of a genetic series fail to bring out 
its teleological character as the essential mark which distinguishes 
it from a mechanical sequence of events. 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. \J2 



The Field of Propositions that have Full Factual Warrant. 

Walter T. Marvin. 

This paper is a continuation of a paper read before the Asso- 
ciation at the Cornell meeting. 

The field of propositions that have full factual warrant, is 
bounded negatively by excluding from it all postulates or axioms, 
all causal and existential propositions, and any proposition that is 
an inference from these. The field itself may be affirmatively de- 
scribed by answering three questions : (i) What relations are 
asserted in factual propositions ? (2) How far is generalization 
possible in them ? (3) What place do these propositions occupy 
in the system of science ? 

(1) The relations asserted are of four types : (a) Likeness and 
Difference ; (b) Various relations between a whole and its parts ; 
(c~) Relations of order and of magnitude ; (d) The presence or 
absence of a term in the factual field. (2) Generalization is pos- 
sible. The highest are intensive not extensive generalizations. 
But they are all lower generalizations than the propositions used 
in the foundations of logic and mathematics. (3) The purely 
descriptive parts of science come nearest to lying wholly in the 
field. The theories of value come next. In relation to mathe- 
matics and the pure causal sciences the work of these factual 
propositions is two-fold : (a) They form the logical bridge between 
non-existential, or pure science, and existential, or applied science ; 
(b) They suggest, but do not give to science her vast array of 
premises, and by continually doing so, as science progresses, 
they keep pure science consistent wtih numberless factual proposi- 
tions. That is, they do not give us premises from which causal 
propositions can be inferred or deduced. They are simply stand- 
ards with which causal assumptions must be kept consistent. 

Analysis of Simple Apprehension. W. H. Sheldon. 

We examine cases of presentation with objective reference : 
e. g. } hear a noise in the margin of consciousness, which we cog- 
nize yet do not think about. Such simple cases are real facts, 
not abstractions. They are mostly marginal ; for we generally 
think about what is focal. The problem is to analyze such cases, 



173 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



to see what light they throw on cognition. The genetic study is 
omitted here. These cases contain : (i) Some content and its 
discrimination. This discrimination does not always involve 
another content from which the first is distinguished. Sometimes 
a content stands out against a background or margin, while yet 
we are not aware of that margin at all. The minimum subject- 
matter of apprehension is content + relation. (2) A disposition 
to believe against doubt or suggested disbelief. (3) A liability 
to error (for the content, while for itself indubitable fact, may be 
falsely discriminated) which justifies us in calling simple appre- 
hension a primitive kind of judgment. (4) An adaptation be- 
tween the structure of the subject-matter and the belief-side, 
such that only a content in relation can be believed, and all 
contents in relation are believed unless inhibited by other beliefs. 
There is no subject-predicate relation here : Brentano's theory 
and the predication-theory both fail to apply to these primitive 
judgments. The sufficient definition of the simplest cognition 
then is : a content in relation, plus a disposition to believe. 

The Concept of Substance and the Problem of Matter. J. A. 

Leighton. (Read by title.) 

An Outline of Cosmic Humanism. Frank C. Doan. 

What sort of world-view is pragmatism likely to breed, if 
allowed to produce its truths on a cosmic scale ? What is the 
meaning of men's inveterate search for the eternal and universal ? 
The present paper intends to examine merely the roots of this 
pragmatic tree of knowledge. It is certain that the eternal is 
not of the nature of ideas nor of forms. The infinitudes of the 
pure reason, as well as the infinitudes of the practical, are want- 
ing in any ideational or formal content that would distinguish 
them one from another. ' Infinite ' when attached to a substan- 
tive is the sign of a contentless, formless function of experience. 
There is no such thing as an infinite idea. In its roots the cosmic 
life consists in the instinctive coordination of blind impulses into 
an organism of experience, a fructification of unconscious will- 
impulses into organic life. The physical universe is now felt in 
the cosmic life as so much pull and haul and dead weight. 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 1 74 



Meanwhile the humanist metaphysic need not postulate a 
cosmic experience less plastic than the human. Within uncer- 
tain limits physical processes are subject to control from higher, 
motor centers of the organism. There is in human organisms 
no inherent disability which would prevent the controlling of 
physical processes from volitional centers in the cosmic life. 

It is conceivable that the function of consciousness even on a 
cosmic scale should cease to operate. The existence of the uni- 
versal is in no active sense necessary. In ' absolute ' idiocy and 
in coma the organism of experience seems to be slipping back 
into the abyss of totally blind impulses-to-be in which the cosmic 
life has its roots. The persistency of the physical universe in the 
midst of its ceaseless flux of being must be interpreted partly as 
the natural healthiness of a great cosmic animal, and partly as 
the conscious resistance of cosmic energy to the deranging forces 
of disease and fatigue. 

This root or marrow of divinity should not be confused with 
the divine cJiaracter which men connote by their more tender 
terms of infinitude. What this character is, how far conscious 
and how far subconscious, in what degree personal and in what 
trans-personal, God only knows. Humanism can only urge over- 
beliefs at this point. 

The True, the Good, and the Beautiful, from a Pragmatic 
Standpoint. W. P. Montague. 

The 1 pragmatic standpoint ' is here taken to mean the attempt 
to interpret all forms of mental activity in terms of the process 
of adaptation of an organism to its environment. From this 
standpoint the logical, ethical, and aesthetical types of value 
should appear as differing forms of that vital equilibrium between 
organism and environment, the attainment of which is the goal 
of all processes of adaptation. This vital equilibrium may result : 
(1) from the organism conforming itself to the environment ; (2) 
from the environment being made to conform to the needs of the 
organism ; (3) from an unforced or spontaneous accord of each 
with the other. The paper suggests : (1) that the true, the good, 
and the beautiful may each be identified with one of these types 
of equilibrium ; (2) that they are radically distinct from one 



175 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



another ; (3) that therefore the pragmatic method yields a con- 
clusion at variance with that pragmatic doctrine which treats the 
true as a form of the good. 

Absolutism and Teleology. A. W. Moore. 

The pass-word of the philosophical camp would seem at first 
glance to be ' purpose.' But a second look shows that the term 
covers wide differences. Indeed, the issue here is the same as 
elsewhere ; viz., the issue between completionism, — absolute per- 
fectionism, — and evolutionism, which in the opinion of the paper 
is the fundamental point of the ' pragmatic ' movement. In 
metaphysics, it is the question of whether there are forms or laws 
of change which themselves are unchangeable ; in logic, whether, 
as Hegel asked, there is a real evolution of the categories ; in 
biology, whether there can be a development of function with no 
corresponding development of structure, or conversely ; in ethics, 
whether the ideal is all-inclusive, fixed, and given, or constructed 
in the process in which it functions. 

As the logical and metaphysical aspects of the problem have 
held the center of the stage thus far, the paper passes to the 
ethical phases of the issue where the conception of the all-inclusive, 
fixed ideal is supposed to find its strongest support. " If the ab- 
solute purpose finds no place in science, this only shows," says 
the absolutist, " the abstract, mechanical character of science." 
It is to be noted in passing, however, that, since Darwin, science 
has become steadily more and more teleological. This, the evolu- 
tionist maintains, is because Darwin in science, as Hegel in logic, 
made possible the conception of an evolutional teleology. The 
mechanical character of pre-Darwinian science was but the 
counterpart of the absolute type of teleology which then prevailed. 

The ethical support for the conception of the all-inclusive, 
fixed ideal, is found by the absolutist in its supposed necessity, 
as : (1) the standard of moral progress ; (2) the basis of objec- 
tivity necessary to moral responsibility and authority. 

To (1) the evolutionist says : (a) that, since the content of this 
absolute ideal can be known to no finite being, it cannot serve as 
a standard ; (b) its all-inclusive character leaves no room for 
either progress or regress. 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. I?6 



To (2) he replies : (a) that, aside from the psychological ques- 
tion of how an all-inclusive purpose can be selective, and the 
logical problem of the relevancy of a ready-made ideal, moral 
responsibility requires that the agent participate in the construction 
of the ideal which he is to help execute ; (b) that objectivity is 
provided for in the fact that the whole process is social through 
and through. 

With the precise limits or constituents of this social process 
the evolutionist's principle is not concerned. The process may 
include infra- and super-human agencies. The principle demands 
only that this social process be real and that reality be this social 
process. 

The Import of Pragmatism for the History of Philosophy. 

J. G. Hume. 

Pragmatism, controversially, is opposed to Intellectualism. 
Psychologically, it asserts the primariness of the vivid sensational 
or emotional experiences of the present moment, contrasting them 
with the theoretical constructions regarded as less real. Logically, 
it endeavors to reduce the ratiocinative process of mediation to 
successive immediate emotional responses, and defines truth in 
terms of satisfactoriness of this emotional reaction. Ethically, it 
uses the same method to get results and applies the same test for 
their validity. Will is the effort to secure satisfying emotional 
adaptations, Belief is the anticipation guiding such adaptive effort, 
Goodness is the successful adaptation. Attacks on Pragmatism 
follow these lines : defence of Intellectualism ; denial of the accu- 
racy of the pragmatic psychological assertions ; disputing the 
correctness of the logical method and the sufficiency of the 
epistemological content ; doubting the adequacy of the method 
and test, and the validity of conclusions, in moral and religious 
' belief.' Pragmatism is a continuation and extension of Em- 
piricism. It attacks Plato, defends the Sophists, reinstates David 
Hume, adds to Hume's " customary conjunction," the Darwinian 
doctrine of heredity, and accepts evolutionary utilitarianism. 

Earlier Empiricism rejected both intellect and will, Prag- 
matism rejects intellect but asserts the will. Schopenhauer also 



1/7 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



denies intellect and affirms will, but his will is transcendent- 
cosmic, the pragmatic will is empirical-humanistic. 

Pragmatism, in separating the will both from the physical 
motor and the intellectual motive, approaches abstract mediaeval 
' liberty of indifference.' Modern intellectualists, affirming both 
intellect and will, give a more concrete account of will than the 
pragmatists, e. g., T. H. Green's account of motive and unifica- 
tion of desire, intellect, and will. [Hegel, attacking the mere 
understanding, asserts concrete synthetic reason.] The material- 
istic-mechanical attack on Pragmatism has no pertinence, since 
the mechanical standpoint provides no basis for any distinction 
between good and evil, true and false, fact and fancy. The real 
controversy is between objective and subjective idealism, and the 
central issue is the will. Though pragmatism ostensibly defends 
empirical subjective idealism and attacks objective idealism, it is 
really reconstructing empiricism so as to approach more closely 
to objective idealism. 

A Plan for a Comparative Lexicon of Philosophical Terms in 
Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin, Historically 
Treated. Isaac Husik. 

The study of mediaeval philosophy has long been difficult 
for want of (i) good editions of texts, and (2) adequate external 
help in terminology of the mediaeval writers. The first want is 
gradually being remedied by publications such as those of Batim- 
ker's Beitrage. As long as the second defect remains, students, 
translators, and editors of mediaeval works, particularly of Ori- 
ental works, in Hebrew and Arabic, will find their task difficult. 

As all medieval philosophy is based upon the Greek writings, 
especially of Aristotle, which were translated first into Syriac, 
from this into Arabic, and from Arabic into Hebrew and Latin, 
or from Arabic into Hebrew, and from this into Latin, it is pro- 
posed to gather the terminology of these translations and other 
works based upon them into a lexicon, paying special attention 
to their historical development. Such a lexicon would not only 
enable the student, translator, and editor of a philosophical medi- 
aeval text to understand his author, and expound, translate, or 
edit him correctly, but would give us a history of mediaeval phi- 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 1 78 



losophy in schematic form, by enabling us to determine, (1) the 
genuineness of works attributed to a given author, (2) his rela- 
tions to his predecessors and followers, (3) the center of his phil- 
osophical activity, (4) the influence of schools of thought upon 
one another. It would besides contribute important additions, to 
the present Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac lexicons, and encourage 
the study of mediaeval philosophy. 

The undertaking here proposed is a very large one, and beyond 
the powers of any one man to carry out. Moreover, it requires 
the moral and material encouragement of institutions and acade- 
mies here and abroad. Its importance, however, should make it 
feasible. Dr. Pollak of the University of Prague has been inter- 
ested in the subject for many years, and assures the author that 
given the proper support, cooperators will not be wanting. The 
field would be divided among specialists in their respective lines, 
who would prepare monographs in selected portions of the field to 
be covered. When these monographs have been got together 
they may then be combined into a historical lexicon of the philo- 
sophical terminology of the Middle Ages, thus filling a very 
sensible gap in the Culturgeschichte of Europe. 

Reflections on Kant's First Antinomy. E. A. Singer, Jr. 

The Problem : Only observation can determine the spread of 
bodies in space, their duration in time ; and there is no finite 
series of observations that can decide between a finite and an infi- 
nite distribution or history. We seem to be presented with an 
unknowable fact. 

But is each of these experimental series bound to be infinite ? 
Can we not conceive of a law of force that would reflect distribu- 
tion throughout an infinitive region in the behavior of bodies con- 
tained in a finite ? At least, we may answer, no known law will 
do this, — the complete discussion presents insuperable difficul- 
ties. But can we not at least assume that the history of the system 
of nature is completely given in its behavior ? If so, we could 
not distinguish between a behavior that meant an infinite past and 
one (shown to be definable) which would mean a finite, so long as 
a probable error of experiment remained. But to reduce this prob- 
able error to zero itself involves an infinite series of observations. 



179 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



The problem is more general than Kant supposed. The dis- 
cussion shows that not only the fact of the world's limits in space 
and time, but that any question of fact involves an infinite series. 
Yet Kant's solution of the particular case is a 'solution of the 
general. Das Unbedingte, become the bare datum of experience, 
is found not to be given in experience, but given to experience as 
a problem. It is never experienced, but stands for an ideal of 
empirical method. The Ding-an-sich as ideal, this is one way 
of expressing the outcome of the Dialektik, an idealism of the a 
posteriori, quite independent of the idealism of the a priori pre- 
sented in the ^Esthetik and Analytik. 

Kant's Doctrine of the Summum Bonum. M. A. Cohen. 

In the first part of this paper an attempt is made to give a 
sympathetic interpretation of Kant's doctrine by calling attention 
to its essentially social character. The summun bo?zum is the 
ideal of a perfectly moral universe or commonwealth, which it is 
our duty to promote. In this ideal commonwealth happiness is 
distributed in accordance with the principles of retributive as well 
as distributive justice. The conception of the deity involved is 
not necessarily that of a deus ex machina. What is essential to 
the argument is the moral faith in a power adequate to bring 
nature into harmony with the demands of moral life. 

In the second part of the paper several objections to this doc- 
trine are considered : (i) The objection that the union of happi- 
ness with duty in the summum bonum is inconsistent with Kant's 
rigorism, is due to a confusion between rigorism and asceticism. 
In Kant's own words : " The distinction between the principle of 
happiness and morality is not an opposition between them." (2) 
The objection of Schleiermacher and others that happiness can- 
not enter into the summum bonum, because the latter is the 
object of reason while happiness is entirely an affair of our sense 
nature, is philologically untenable, and misinterprets the relation 
between sense and reason in Kant's philosophy. Happiness, like 
morality, is applicable only to a creature who is both rational 
and sensible. (3) The most important objection to the doctrine is 
that back of it there is involved a doctrine of rewards and punish- 
ments, and this is generally supposed to be inconsistent with the 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 180 



principle of virtue for virtue's sake. But here again the supposed 
contradiction follows only from drawing the antithesis too sharply. 
A sympathetic interpretation of Kant's doctrine, indeed, would 
enable us to transcend the usual antinomies between conduct and 
its result, between the end and the means. 

The Idea of Justice in the Christian Ethics. J. M. Mecklin. 

Unlike the Greek and the modern conception of justice, the 
Christian idea is essentially otherworldly and transcendental, 
rather than political or social. The just life is the result of a 
divine pronouncement upon human life and character, rather than 
the outcome of man's social and political relations. This was 
due largely to the centuries of oppression suffered by the Jewish 
people, which led them to look for justice not in existing condi- 
tions, but in a supernatural and catastrophic close of the present 
world-order when existing moral values would be reversed by a 
divine judgment and an ideal condition, " the kingdom of God 
and his righteousness," would be introduced. The large number 
of passages in the Christian sources of a distinctly eschatological 
nature show that the author of the Christian Ethics held to this 
prevailing conception of justice. Hence the very slight reference 
to questions of political justice, the insistence upon complete self- 
abnegation, and the emphasis of non-resistance of evil, as essentials 
in the just and righteous life. Had the author of Christian 
Ethics contemplated the continued existence, or at most the 
gradual moral transformation, of the existing political and social 
orders, it is more than probable that his teachings would have 
placed more emphasis upon justice as a social and civic virtue. 

The Doctrine of Histurgy : an Epistemology for the Scientist 
and the Logician. 1 Christine Ladd Franklin. 
Hitherto, philosophy has consisted of different, irreconcilable 
— in fact, incompatible — t systems ' ; but this state of things 
is not necessarily permanent. The powers of the human mind 
have now become so sharpened, — notably by the discipline of 
the strictly reasoning sciences, logic and mathematics, — that it 

1 This paper was read in abstract before the Philosophical Congress in Heidelberg, 
August, 1908. 



i8i 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



ought to be possible to secure some common, accepted body of 
doctrine having scientific character. Much of the philosophy of 
the past has already been shown to be a tissue of fiction and un- 
reason ; much of the philosophy of the present can be shown to 
be of the same character : it needs but a vigorous, concerted effort 
on the part of philosophers to rescue philosophy from the charge 
of being art, or poetry, but not science. Moreover, there is at 
present a greater need for an accepted philosophy among the non- 
philosophers than there has ever been before. The other sci- 
ences, — notably mathematics and logic, — are growing rapidly, 
not only forwards but also backwards, and as they dig down 
deeper into their foundations they feel the necessity for an estab- 
lished philosophy, that is, for a discipline which shall explain 
whatever is capable of being explained but has not yet been ex- 
plained in any one of the special sciences. 

Such a philosophy, I venture to predict, should consist of the 
following doctrines : 

1 . A theory of reality, — the theory (already wide-spread 
among philosophers later than Kant) that immediate, uninter- 
preted, unanalyzable experience is the type, — and also the entire 
content, — of what is, in the highest degree, the real, or the exis- 
tent. 

2. A reformed psychology ; since philosophy is necessarily 
based upon what the not-farther-analyzable constituents of 
consciousness are, it is of the last importance that these constitu- 
ents should be correctly made out. Not thought, not sensation, 
not will, is the groundwork of an adequate philosophical sys- 
tem ; the fundamental content of consciousness is all that we 
have to build philosophy upon, but also we need it alL 

3. A theory of truth. 

4. Since truth is expressed in the form of judgments, a theory 
of the judgment. 

Knowledge, — the ensemble of all true and non-trivial proposi- 
tions, — acquires the immense validity which we attribute to it 
(over and above what simple isolated inductions would have) by 
means of the interconnections of truths and the fresh confirma- 
tions (through instances) which we are able to obtain of the con- 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 1 82 



sequences of several truths when fused together by way of 
reasoning. Knowledge is a net-work, a woven tissue, a work 
of weaving. 

This and not the pragmatic view is the true doctrine of conse- 
quences ; it is desirable to give it a name, in order that a doctrine 
which is simple and well known, but true, may the more readily 
make front against the vagaries of pragmatism — the name, per- 
haps, of histurgy (a work of weaving). 

Discussion : Realism and Idealism. 

Josiah Royce. (No abstract has been furnished.) 

John Dewey. 

The conclusion of the paper was that realism and idealism 
arise from differences in logical attitude and mode of attack, real- 
ism standing for the function and role of observation, description, 
definition and classification, while idealism sets store by the func- 
tion of reflection, interpretation, reorganization of facts through 
the projection of ideas and hypotheses. Since, however, these 
functions are mutually cooperative and limiting in the pursuit of 
knowledge, the real problem of the realistic-idealistic contro- 
versy turns out to be why and how each of these motifs is isolated 
from the other, and thereby exaggerated into the basis of an in- 
dependently complete system. 

The answer is to be sought in historic considerations. The 
background of ancient thought was custom and habit ; a world of 
fixed characters, the world of natural and social acknowledgments, 
or observations, corresponds to custom and habit. Thus the logic 
of observation was entangled with a cosmology which was both 
false and irrelevant, and the result of classic thought was an ontol- 
ogy which even when idealistic as a theory of existence (as in the 
case of Plato and Aristotle) was realistic as a theory of knowledge. 

Under the conditions of the origin of modern thought, the 
emphasis fell upon progress, and hence upon protest and rebellion 
against acceptance of the given and customary order, whether 
that of the senses or of institutions. The individual was magni- 
fied, and in the individual the power of projecting ideas, of dis- 
covery, of inferring the new and the different. The logical stress 



183 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



was thus transferred to ' ideas ' and interpretation at the expense 
of ' data ' and observation, which were transformed from final- 
ities into fragmentary raw material for thought. Individual con- 
sciousness thus took the place of the perceptible cosmos as the 
clue to the metaphysical characterization of Reality, and episte- 
mological idealism was born. 

Present indications are towards giving up the attempt at whole- 
sale characterizations of ' Reality ' as such. In this case, the 
cooperation and mutual limitations of observation and interpre- 
tation, of custom and progress, in the pursuit of knowlege will 
be recognized, and the absolutistic opposition of realism and ideal- 
ism will become an historic episode. 

Frederick J. E. Woodbridge. 

As a contribution to the discussion this paper proposed an 
examination of the nature of consciousness based upon consid- 
erations drawn from the study of the structure and functions of 
the sense organs and the nervous system. A superficial exami- 
nation of the sense organs and the nervous system reveals a 
striking difference in structure and function, which becomes more 
striking the more thorough the examination is made. Thus the 
sense organs appear to be constructed and differentiated in rela- 
tion to qualitative differences in the stimuli which may affect 
them, while the nervous system appears to be constructed and 
unified in relation to coordinated activity by the organism. While 
the sense organs put the organism in diversified contact with its 
surroundings, the nervous system prevents this diversification 
from resulting in disintegrated and isolated reactions. It is thus 
apparent that the nervous system secures to the organism indi- 
viduality and unity of life in spite of very great diversity of 
stimuli and of environment. These considerations afford the 
means of stating the relational view of consciousness in biolog- 
ical terms. An organism so situated that it should be affected 
by specific qualitative differences in the world about it, but which 
should, none the less, react in a unified and coordinated manner 
no matter how it might be stimulated, might well be defined as a 
conscious organism. Its consciousness would be a relational 
system supervening upon its differentiated contact with its sur- 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 1 84 



roundings. Furthermore, its consciousness would be marked by 
many of the characteristics usually attributed to consciousness. 
It would, for instance, be what we call private and personal, and, 
being unified, it would present features ascribed to a self or a 
mind. Different organisms could readily be conceived as exhib- 
iting those varieties and even abnormalities of experience with 
which we are familiar. 

C. M. Bakewell. 

The first thing necessary in a discussion of realism and ideal- 
ism is to get rid, once for all, of certain misunderstandings with 
regard to idealism which are very common even in the current 
discussions, and which would indeed turn idealism into a form 
of madness. (1) As to method. It is charged that the idealist 
rests his case against realism, or in support of idealism, on the 
physiological argument, and since this argument cannot be stated 
without taking it for granted that idealism is not true, the idealist 
is in the absurd position of supposing his philosophy to be the 
conclusion drawn from premises which that conclusion itself 
makes absurd. (2) As to results. It is charged that the idealist 
resolves physical phenomena into mental phenomena ; that he is 
logically forced to believe that the actual processes of nature are 
identical with his experience and knowledge of those processes ; 
that, in a word, he entirely obliterates the distinction between the 
subjective and the objective. These charges are all unsupported 
by the facts. They constitute a set of absurdities that may be 
extracted from certain statements of the esse-percipi theory, — 
most unfortunate phrase, — but they cannot even be laid to the 
door of Berkeley. The realistic theory of matter which Berkeley 
was opposing presents a parallel absurdity. And just as the 
modern realists do not attempt to revive this pre-Berkeleyan 
' hypothetical ' realism, so modern idealisms are equally innocent 
of early subjectivism, — if, indeed, there ever existed a subjective 
idealist. It is a significant fact that the first searching criticism 
of the esse-percipi theory was made by the first great idealist. 
And many of the criticisms he made are identical with those 
which the modern realist makes when he thinks he is attacking 
idealism, but is in truth attacking the common enemy, subjec- 



i»5 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



tivism. And it is no less significant that the first great realist, 
Democritus, is the man who more than any other is responsible 
for the esse-percipi theory of his fellow townsman, Protagoras. 
The inference which these facts at once suggest is amply justified 
by the history of philosophy : that a realism which makes the 
reals lie outside of experience in an inaccessible beyond has sub- 
jectivism for its twin error ; and that idealism, so far from being 
identical with subjectivism, is rather an attack upon it, and an 
attempt to make objectivism intelligible. It should be clear that 
any criticism of idealism which starts out with the assumption 
that we have two separate orders called mental phenomena and 
physical phenomena, and then proceeds to put ideas into the 
class mental phenomena and summarily rule idealism out of 
court because it has taken the half of reality for the whole, has 
no value, since it simply begs the question at issue, idealism 
being one continued protest against the finality of any such divis- 
ion of realities. If one could make such division it is plain that 
ideas would not belong exclusively to either group. The common 
motive underlying the efforts of science and philosophy alike is 
the desire in and through individual experience to reach universal 
experience. Every experience being characterized by the dual 
subject-object relation, there are two paths that idealism follows, 
one, the ontological, starting from the object side of this relation, 
and the other, the epistemological, starting from the subject side. 
In the resulting concrete or objective idealism the word idea is 
not given, as is charged, a strange and unusual significance, but 
is employed in one of its most commonly accepted meanings. 
But it is of course not equivalent to image, impression, state of 
consciousness, or mental phenomenon. 

Norman Smith. 

Two points may be contended for. First : a distinction be- 
tween consciousness and its object, between process of appre- 
hension and object apprehended, is the irreducible minimum 
which our theory of knowledge must recognize and for the possi- 
bility of which it must account. The subjective factors must be 
stated in specifically subjective terms ; otherwise objectivity itself 
goes by the board. Secondly : the relation of mind and body is 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 1 86 



the crucial problem through the treatment of which our theories, 
and especially those that claim to be realistic, can best be tested 
by the relevant facts. And it has this importance because it is the 
problem through which our theory of knowledge connects with 
the standpoints of physics and physiology. 

Objective idealism, which proceeds by emphasizing the logical 
relation of necessary mutual implication between subject knowing 
and object known, or between both and an absolute self-conscious- 
ness, persistently ignores the problem of the relation of mind and 
body. The realistic theories seem open to criticism in so far as 
they seek to explain consciousness in purely objective terms, 
and consequently treat the problem of the relation of mind and 
body as if it raised the question only of the adaptation of the 
physical organism to its environment. 

LIST OF MEMBERS. 
Adler, Professor Felix, Columbia University, New York. 
Aikins, Professor H. A., Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, O. 
Albee, Professor Ernest, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Alexander, Dr. H. B., University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb. 
Angier, Dr. R. P., Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 
Armstrong, Professor A. C, Wesleyan Univ., Middletown, Conn. 
Bakewell, Professor Charles M., Yale Univ., New Haven, Conn. 
Baldwin, Professor J. Mark, Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, Md. 
Bawden, Professor H. Heath, Box 691, San Diego, California, 
van Becelaere, Rev. E. L. , Convent of the Visitation, Georgetown, Ky. 
Bentley, Professor I. M., Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Bigelow, Rev. Dr. F. H.,1625 Massachusetts Ave., Washington, D.C. 
Brandt, Professor Francis B., Central High School, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Britan, Professor Halbert Hains, Bates College, Lewiston, Me. 
Brown, Dr. H. O, Columbia University, New York. 
Brown, Professor Wm. Adams, Union Theol. Seminary, New York. 
Bryan, President W. L. , Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. 
Buchner, Professor E. F. , Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, Md. 
Bush, Dr. Wendell T. , Columbia University, New York. 
Butler, President N. M., Columbia University, New York. 
Caldwell, Professor W., McGill University, Montreal, Canada. 
Calkins, Professor Mary Whiton, Wellesley College, Wellesley,Mass. 
Campbell, Professor Gabriel, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H. 
Carus, Dr. Paul, La Salle, 111. 



i8 7 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



Case, Professor Mary S., Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass. 
Cattell, Professor J. McKeen, Columbia University, New York. 
Chrysostom, Brother, Manhattan College, New York. 
Churchhill, Dr. William, 58 Franklin Sq., New Britain, Conn. 
Coe, Professor George A., Northwestern University, Evanston, 111. 
Cohen, Dr. M. R., College of the City of New York, New York. 
Crawford, Professor A. W. , Univ. of Pittsburgh, Southside, Pittsburgh. 
Creighton, Professor, J. E., Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Cunningham, Dr. G. W. , Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt. 
Curtis, Professor M. M., Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, O. 
Cushman, Professor H. E., Tufts College, Boston, Mass. 
Cutler, Professor Anna A., Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 
Daniels, Professor Arthur H., University of Illinois, Urbana, 111. 
Davies, Dr. Henry, Easton, Md. 

Dearborn, Professor G. V. N., Tufts Medical School, Boston, Mass. 
Dewey, Professor John, Columbia University, New York. 
Doan, Professor F. C, Meadville Theol. School, Meadville, Pa. 
Dodge, Professor Raymond, Wesleyan Univ., Middletown, Conn. 
Dolson, Professor Grace Neal, Wells College, Aurora, N. Y. 
Duncan, Professor George M., Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 
Everett, Professor Walter G., Brown Univ., Providence, R. I. 
Ewer, Dr. Bernard C, Northwestern University, Evanston, 111. 
Fite, Professor Warner, University of Indiana, Bloomington, Ind. 
Fogel, Dr. Philip H., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
Franklin, Mrs. ChristineLadd, 103 W. Monument St., Baltimore, Md. 
French, Professor F. C. , University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb. 
Fuller, Mr. B. A. G., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
Fullerton, Professor G. S., Columbia University, New York. 
Gardiner, Professor H. N., Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 
Gillett, Professor A. L., Hartford Theol. Sem., Hartford, Conn. 
Gordon, Dr. Kate, Teachers' College, Columbia Univ. , New York. 
Gore, Professor Willard Clark, Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, 111. 
Griffin, Professor E. H., Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, Md. 
Gulliver, President Julia H., Rockford College, Rockford, 111. 
Hall, Professor T. C, Union Theological Seminary, New York. 
Hammond, Professor W. A., Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Harris, Dr. William T., 1360 Fairmont St., Washington, D. C. 
Hayes, Professor C. H., General Theological Seminary, New York. 
Hibben, Professor J. G., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
Hill, President A. Ross, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. 
Hitchcock, Dr. Clara M., Lake Erie College, Painsville, O. 



No. 2.] AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 188 



Hite, Professor L. F., New Church Theol. Sch., Cambridge, Mass. 
Hocking, Professor W. E., Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 
Hoffman, Professor Frank S., Union College, Schenectady, N. Y. 
Hollands, Dr. Edmund H., Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Home, Professor H. H., Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H. 
Hough, Professor W. S. , George WashingtonUniv. , Washington, D. C. 
Howes, Mrs. Ethel Puffer, 617 W. 113th St., New York. 
Hughes, Professor Percy, Lehigh Univ. , South Bethlehem, Pa. 
Hume, Professor J. G., University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. 
Husik, Dr. Isaac, Gratz College, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Hyde, President William DeWitt, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. 
Hyslop, Dr. J. H., 519 W. 149th St., New York. 
James, Professor William, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
Johnson, Professor R. B. C, Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
Jones, Professor A. L., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
Jones, Professor Rums M., Haverford College, Haverford, Pa. 
Judd, Professor Charles H., Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 
Keyser, Professor Cassius Jackson, Columbia Univ., New York. 
Ladd, Professor G. T., New Haven, Conn. 

de Laguna, Professor Theodore, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr,Pa. 
Lane, Professor W. B., Lynchburg, Va. 

Lefevre, Professor Albert, Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 
Leighton, Professor, J. A., Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y. 
Lloyd, Professor A. H., Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 
Lord, Professor Herbert G. , Columbia University, New York. 
Lough, Professor J. E., Sch. of Pedagogy, N. Y. Univ., New York. 
Lovejoy, Professor A. O., University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. 
Lyman Professor Eugene W., Bangor Theol. Sem., Bangor, Me. 
MacCracken, Chancellor Henry M., New York Univ., New York. 
MacDougall, Professor R. M. , New York University, New York. 
MacKenzie, President William Douglas, Hartford, Conn. 
MacVannel, Professor J. A., Columbia University, New York. 
Marshall, Dr. Henry Rutgers, 3 West 29th St., New York. 
Martin, Professor Herbert, N. Y. Training Sch. for Teachers, N. Y. 
Marvin, Professor W. T., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
Mason, Dr. M. Phillips, 347 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Mass. 
McAllister, Professor C. N., State Normal School, Warrensburg, Mo. 
McCormack, Mr. Thomas J., La Salle, 111. 

McGilvary, Professor E. B., University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 
Mead, Professor George H., University of Chicago, Chicago, 111. 
Mecklin, Professor John M., Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



Meikeljohn, Professor Alex., Brown Univ., Providence, R. I. 
Miller, Professor Dickinson S., Columbia University, New York. 
Montague, Professor W. P., Columbia University, New York. 
Montgomery, Dr. G. R., 126 W. 104th St., New York. 
Moore, Professor Addison W., University of Chicago, Chicago, 111. 
Moore, Professor Vida F., Elmira College, Elmira, N Y. 
Miinsterberg, Professor Hugo, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass. 
Newbold, Professor W. R., Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Ormond, Professor Alexander T. , Princeton Univ. , Princeton, N. J. 
Pace, Professor E. A., Catholic Univ. of America, Washington, D. C. 
Patton, President Francis L., Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. T. 
Patton, Professor George S., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
Perry, Professor Ralph Barton, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass. 
Pitkin, Mr. Walter B., New York Evening Post, New York. 
Payne, Professor Bruce R. , University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 
Pratt, Professor J. B., Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. 
Rand, Dr. Benj., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
Raymond, President B. P., Wesleyan Univ., Middletown, Conn. 
Raymond, Professor G. L., George Washington Univ., Washington. 
Read, Professor M. S., Colgate University, Hamilton, N. Y. 
Riley, Professor I. Woodbridge, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. 
Robbins, Mr. Reginald C, 373 Washington St., Boston, Mass. 
Rogers, Professor A. K. , Butler College, Indianapolis, Ind. 
Rousmaniere, Dr. Frances H., Smith Coll., Northampton, Mass. 
Rowland, Dr. Eleanor H., Mt. Holyoke Coll., So. Hadley, Mass. 
Royce, Professor Josiah, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
Russell, Professor John E., Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. 
Sabine, Professor George H., Stanford University, California. 
Santayana, Professor George, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass. 
Schmidt, Professor Karl, Pequaket, N. H. 
Schurman, President J. G., Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Sewall, Rev. Dr. Frank, 1618 Riggs Place, Washington, D. C. 
Shanahan, Professor E. T., Catholic Univ. of America, Washington. 
Sharp, Professor Frank C, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 
Shaw, Professor C. G., New York University, New York. 
Sheldon, Professor W. H., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
Singer, Professor Edgar A. , Jr. , Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 
Smith, Professor Norman, Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
Sneath, Professor E. Hershey, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 
Spaulding, Professor E. G., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J, 
Squires, Professor W. H. , Hamilton College, Clinton, N. Y. 



AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION. 190 

Starbuck, Professor E. D. , University of Iowa, Iowa City, la. 
Steele, Rev. E. S., 1522 Q St., Washington, D. C. 
Sterrett, Professor J. M., George Washington Univ., Washington. 
Stewardson, President L. C, Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y. 
Stroh, Mr. Alfred M., Bryn Athyn, Pa. 
Strong, Professor C. A., Columbia University, New York. 
Swenson, Mr. David F., Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 
Talbot, Professor Ellen B., Mt. Holyoke Coll., So. Hadley, Mass. 
Tawney, Professor Guy A., University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, O. 
Taylor, Professor A. E., St. Andrews, Scotland. 
Taylor, Professor W. J., Training School for Teachers, Brooklyn. 
Thilly, Professor Frank, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Thompson, Miss Anna Boynton, Thayer Academy, Braintree, Mass. 
Thorndike, Professor E. L. , Columbia University, New York. 
Tufts, Professor James H., University of Chicago, Chicago, 111. 
Urban, Professor Wilbur M., Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. 
Washburn, Professor Margaret F. , Vassar Coll., Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 
Weigle, Professor Luther A., Carleton College, Northfield, Minn. 
Wenley, Professor R. M., Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 
Whitney, Dr. G. W. T., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
Wilde, Professor N., University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 
Wilson, Professor G. A., Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y. 
Woodbridge, Professor F. J. E., Columbia University, New York. 
Wright, Professor H. W., Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, 111. 
(Members are requested to notify the Secretary of any correction 
to be made in the above list. ) 



[Reprinted from the Philosophical Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 2, March, 1909.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 1 

The masterly presidential address of my predecessor in this 
office was devoted to " The Problem of Truth." He spoke with 
authority a unifying word in the struggles which characterize the 
American Philosophy of to-day. He focused the interest of our 
Association on the one central point from which our discussions 
in recent years have been derived, and there certainly can be no 
higher mission for such presidential addresses than to give ex- 
pression in this way to that which stands in the foreground of our 
thoughts. Yet, is it merely the law of psychical contrast which 
makes me believe that there is one thing not less important than 
the center of our interests, namely, the center of our neglects ? 
Am I entirely wrong in thinking that if such a presidential ad- 
dress has to accentuate a certain problem, it may be right to work 
against philosophical one-sidedness by emphasizing not those 
problems which are daily with us but those which we have for- 
gotten and almost lost ? One-sidedness is nowhere more dan- 
gerous than in philosophy, for every true philosophical question 
and answer is related to the whole philosophical universe. To 
give attention to a fraction only must always lead to a distorted 
view of reality. In every other field of intellectual effort, the 
division of labor may demand a one-sided concentration, and per- 
haps without serious harm. In philosophy there never was, and 
never can be, a movement which does not pay a grave penalty 
for the neglect of any fundamental side of life. Truth and 
morality, beauty and religion give meaning to our life ; and the 
experience which philosophy seeks to interpret and to understand 

1 Delivered as the presidential address before the Eighth Annual Meeting of the 
American Philosophical Association at Johns Hopkins University, December 30, 1908. 

121 



122 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



is falsified, if you substitute one single color for the rainbow of 
reality, if you discuss the question of truth alone. 

Surely, I have no right to say that this has occurred wholly. 
The philosophical problems of morality and religion have been 
unduly suppressed by the interest in the problem of truth, but 
they were never really brought to silence. Their inner life energy 
makes them heard even where they seem to be unwelcome. 
Only one ideal has suffered the full severity of the situation ; 
while no one in his fights about truth has dared entirely to forget 
that there is morality in the world too, American philosophers, 
with two or three notable exceptions, have not cared to remem- 
ber that beauty also is interwoven in the life we aim to under- 
stand. I claim that, without forgetting that the empirical psy- 
chology of the sense of beauty, the experimental analysis and the 
physiological explanation, have given us some strong contribu- 
tions to a psychological aesthetics. The psychologist has not to 
speak the last word here, and nobody would suppose that he has, 
if we had not so carelessly and so persistently neglected the 
philosophy of beauty. 

Of course, whoever approaches the problem of beauty to-day 
is inclined to start with the study of the psychological processes 
in aesthetic enjoyment. Here alone is evidently solid ground. It 
was the great day of emancipation for aesthetics when at last it 
became liberated from metaphysical speculation and when Fech- 
ner's patience laid the foundation for an aesthetics "from below," 
for an aesthetics which simply gathers the empirical facts, de- 
scribes them with scientific exactness, starts with the simplest 
elements and leads slowly from the most elementary aesthetic 
experience to the appreciation of the highest treasures of art. It 
was the hour of birth for experimental aesthetics, which in the 
last decades has found greater and greater access to the psycho- 
logical laboratories of all countries. Its spirit harmonized well 
with the ethnological discoveries of the same period, and with the 
folk-lore studies which have shown us the primitive origins of 
human art. 

What biology and ethnology and history of art have yielded 
there, offers evidently no difficulty as far as principles are con- 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



123 



cerned. It is the same simple story which the last fifty years 
have told us in every department of human endeavor, the story 
of slow, natural development. Artistic creation and artistic ap- 
preciation have grown as language and religion, as customs and 
law have grown. More difficulty and therefore more contro- 
versy belong to the contributions of the empirical psychologist. 
Certainly the psychologist's starting-point was very simple and 
natural too. He had to begin with the question : What are the 
impressions which we prefer to others ? Which colors and which 
color combinations, which tone successions and which chords, 
which lines and angles and curves, which rhythms and which 
movements, are more or less pleasant ? The experiment alone 
can give the answer, if one seeks exactitude. It was short- 
sighted to claim that such experimental aesthetics would remain 
unsatisfactory, because it could never lead beyond an analysis of 
the simplest pleasant stimuli. That was the same narrowness 
with which, at the cradle of experimental psychology, it was 
prophesied that the psychological laboratory could never grow 
beyond the study of sensations and reactions. Meantime the 
psychological experiment has conquered the whole field of men- 
tal life ; and in the same way we may not merely have a vague 
hope, but we may confidently expect that the psychological ex- 
periment in aesthetics too will lead from the simple stimulations 
to the most complex objects of appreciation. Yes, it cannot be 
denied that much has been reached, and that the strictly experi- 
mental method has been applied in recent days to aesthetic material 
which far exceeds the elementary beginnings, to pictures and 
poems and melodies. 

But more important was the increasing insight into the fact that 
the character of the outer stimuli is not sufficient to explain the 
pleasure which their perception offers. From year to year the 
experimental work has turned more and more to a careful study 
of the subjective factors. We may think here of the investiga- 
tions which refer to the psychophysical conditions : how far, for 
instance, do different positions or fatigue or drugs or repetitions 
influence our enjoyment ? Or we may think of the investigations 
which refer to the psychophysical effects, for instance, to the 



124 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



motor responses or to changes in pulse and breathing during the 
aesthetic state. Or finally we may think of those studies which 
examine the associations and inhibitions, the memory processes 
and organic sensations in the aesthetic affection. It cannot be 
denied that the experimental results along these lines have so far 
been meagre. We are only at the beginning of the laboratory 
task, as far as the subjective factors of the aesthetic state are in- 
volved. 

Yet the shortcomings of the laboratory work are not harmful, 
as we can fill the blanks of our knowledge by the results of care- 
ful self- observation in our daily enjoyment of works of art. Every 
artistic experience works here as a kind of experiment. The psy- 
chologists have, therefore, not waited until the laboratories have 
furnished us with exact data : most various psychological theories 
have clamored for acceptance. 

We know the theory which says that the physical stimuli 
awaken in us a system of motor responses, and that we feel pleas- 
antness whenever these physiological tensions and excitements 
and movements harmonize with the structural conditions of the 
organism. On the other hand we have theories which refer to 
psychical factors only, and seek the source of pleasantness in 
the similarity and likeness of mental states. We like it that the 
mental response which one element awakes is in some respects 
the same as the other elements are producing. Other theories 
again arise from quite different starting points. That which is 
really pleasant, they say, is the feeling that the perceived object 
of art does not make demands on our practical activity, that 
is, that our impulses to real actions are inhibited. That gives 
us a pleasant feeling of freedom from the necessities of practical 
existence. We are in a playful attitude which awakens an agree- 
able emotion. Quite near to this stands the theory which empha- 
sizes that the work of art inhibits whatever is not contained in it. 
All associations which carry our mental life away from the aes- 
thetic perception are thus inhibited and suppressed, and this hyp- 
notizing power of the work of art overcomes us with a restful 
feeling of pleasure ; we are liberated from the real chain of events. 
But if such theories emphasize the feeling of unreality, others 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



125 



point out how this state of mind alternates with the opposite : it 
has been insisted, indeed, that the whole pleasant effect of art 
lies in this constant fluctuation between the feeling of reality and 
the feeling of unreality, a kind of pendulum movement, which 
gives us a particular pleasure. 

Other theorists again insist that we project our own mental 
states into the aesthetic object. We enjoy it to be thus free from 
the feeling of our own personality, to feel, instead of ourselves, 
the actions of nature. Or, on the contrary, it may be said that 
our self enjoys itself because it becomes the richer, the more it 
absorbs the external impulses and energies. Is it necessary to 
gather still more types of psychological theories, to speak further 
of those which emphasize the pleasure from associated ideas of 
practical advantage or of moral satisfaction, or the pleasure of 
mere imitation, or the pleasure of overcoming technical difficul- 
ties, and so on ? May we not rather notice that every one of 
them points to important parts of the experience and that they 
are in no way contradictory to one another? Yes, perhaps all oi 
them ought to enter as factors into an ultimate psychological 
theory of the pleasantness of beautiful objects. But more impor- 
tant to me is the fact that they all belong together in still another 
way : they all, without exception, are nothing but psychological 
theories. 

Their common presupposition is this : the works of art or the 
beauties of nature are physical objects, lights and sounds and so 
on in a physical world, and they have a certain causal effect in 
human organisms, they stimulate the sense organs and the brain 
and awake there a series of physiological and mental phenomena 
of which the last is a feeling of pleasantness. The various 
theories disagree as to the most important links in this causal 
chain between the sensory stimulation of the brain and the feeling 
of pleasantness, but the principles and the purposes of the theories 
are, after all, the same throughout. They are fundamentally not 
different from the psychological explanation of the enjoyment of 
fruit and coffee and candy. The psychophysical processes be- 
tween the sensations in eating an apple and the pleasure we have 
in the fruit may be simple ; those between the impression of a 



126 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



painting by Rembrandt and the pleasure in the picture may be 
complex. But the interposition of all those associations and 
inhibitions, fusions and impulses does not really change the char- 
acter of the psychological task : it is an individual pleasure feeling 
which is to be explained by causal means. The aesthetic enjoy- 
ment in every case means a certain pleasant feeling stirred up in 
the individual organism, and the beauty of the object is nothing 
but an illusory objectifi cation of this mental phenomenon of 
pleasure. Things of beauty have themselves no value, they are 
themselves ultimately physical molecules, mechanical atoms, air- 
waves, and ether-waves. Their only aesthetic import lies in the 
fact that they are the causes of pleasant effects in psychophysical 
individuals. 

But have we really a right to stop here and to accept such 
psychological analysis as the last word of aesthetic inquiry ? 
Has beauty really no further meaning for us than that it gives us 
a pleasant feeling ? Is our enjoyment of Leonardo's Mona Lisa 
or of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, of Hamlet or of Antigone, 
really nothing but a more complex pleasure of the kind which 
chocolate and perfumes may awaken in us. Yes, have I ever 
been near at all to the altar of beauty, if my personal pleasure, 
my individual state, my passing enjoyment was all that I meant 
by the meaning of beauty ? If I enjoy the pleasures of life I 
seek my own comfort, my own tickling sensations, in short, I 
seek states of myself. If I worship at the shrine of beauty I 
know that nothing depends upon me, the chance individual, 
that I reach out there to a reality which must be valuable for 
every one who is able to feel it, that it comes to me as an ought 
to which I submit, that it comes as a perfection which belongs 
to the truest meaning of the world and which cannot be other- 
wise. I may not be able to hold it, I may not be worthy to 
enter into its endlessness, but if it ever spoke to me at all and 
unveiled its beauty, it did not ask me whether there was pleasure 
in my consciousness, it asked only whether I grasped its harmony 
and through it the perfection of the world. 

The well-trained psychologist has a condescending smile for 
such metaphysical cant. He shivers at the thought that he 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



127 



might be thrown back to the speculative aesthetics of pre- 
psychological times, to that aesthetics ' from above ' which begins 
with vague speculation instead of the facts of real experience. 
Yet he is not afraid of any danger, because his psychology can 
quickly give a full account of such mystical moods. Of course, 
he says, in excitable personalities the psychophysical emotions 
caused by the pleasant object may overflow into secondary chan- 
nels and produce semi-religious associations and feelings. The 
psychologist is perfectly satisfied with this solution of the problem 
and simply asks us to inhibit those vague associations and to 
stick to the real facts .- 

I agree with him fully, but I ask : What are the real facts ? 
What is my real, immediate, unreconstructed life experience ? I 
have before me the drawing of a simple beautiful arabesque. Its 
halves balance each other, a rhythmical movement pervades their 
interplay, they move away from the center and come back, and 
the longer I follow their energies, the more I understand their 
perfect harmony. What are the facts ? You say the drawing is 
a physical distribution of white and black points ; they produce 
in my mind a visual idea through the agency of my sense organ 
and my brain, and this idea by associations and reactions awakes 
a psychical idea of movement and energy which I project into 
the physical ornament, and from this finally arises in my content 
of consciousness a feeling of pleasure. All of this I deny : I 
say that nothing of the kind enters into my experience. In see- 
ing this ornament, I have not the double experience of the phys- 
ical thing outside of me and the mental visual idea of it in me, 
enclosed in the capsule of my consciousness ; I do not know that 
ornament as being in me at all, nor do I know of my brain, nor 
do I feel my feeling as an experience of which I simply become 
aware, nor do I know of those energies as states in me, nor do 
I know of any causal connection between those various factors ; 
in short, no one of those so-called facts of physics and psychol- 
ogy present themselves to me as expressions of my real experi- 
ence. I do not say that they are not true ; that means I do not 
deny that it may have logical value to look at the situation as if 
it presented itself in those physical and psychological categories 



128 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



and thus to reshape for certain purposes the facts of life in the 
way to which physics and psychology are accustomed. I insist 
only that their truths so cloaked and masked are not the naked 
facts of life, and that if we really want an aesthetics ' from below/ 
that is, an aesthetics which begins where no complicated thinking 
has remolded the facts, then we cannot possibly start from the 
results of physiological psychology. They may be necessary 
for certain ends but they are artificial, and to leave them behind 
and to come back at last to that which we really experience is 
certainly not a neglect of facts, but a true regaining of facts, from 
which the causal sciences lead us away not less than the meta- 
physical speculations. What are the facts ? I ask again. 

This ornament on paper is to me not two-fold but one, neither 
a physical thing made up of atoms, nor a visual image made up 
of sensations. It is a still undifferentiated pre-physical and pre- 
psychological object. On the other hand, I myself take attitude 
toward it not as a passive subject of consciousness which becomes 
aware of feelings and emotions, ideas and volitions, as conscious 
phenomena, but I myself am living through those attitudes, I am 
the will which reaches out directly toward those real objects. 
The antithesis of the subject of will and of the object is primary ; 
it is a far way from it to the quite different antithesis of psychical 
and physical. Yes, I can go further. That object of my interest 
is not even a ' thing ' in the sense of physical existence. If I 
speak of my object as a thing, I mean by it more than my im- 
mediate impression ; I mean then that it will be a possible object 
for later experience and was an object for previous experience. 
In short, I have introduced thought relations which lie in the 
direction of physics, but which transcend the actual fact of my 
aesthetic experience. Neither the ornament before me, nor the 
picturesque church tower I see, nor the melody I hear is more 
than an impression which comes to me as a meaning, as a mani- 
foldness of energies, of suggestions, of demands. I do not ask 
whether it will lead beyond the present experience, whether it is 
a thing ; the impression stands for itself and every element in it 
wants me to take part. I feel uplifted with the noble upward 
movement of the tower, that is, the will of my personality wills 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



129 



with the tower itself, and with the tones of the melody my will 
excites itself and longs for the other tones. Let us for once 
banish the reminiscences of physical knowledge, let us for once 
face reality as we experience it, naively and purely, and every 
difficulty disappears for understanding the self-expression of this 
world of objects as a concrete fact. It may be ever so valuable 
to turn from reality in the other direction and to connect experi- 
ences until they give us things and causal connections, but it is 
certainly not less justified to resist such an impulse, and to seek to 
understand instead what we hold in the present experience itself, 
before we transcend it. 

In such immediate experience every part comes to me as a 
suggestion for my will. I grasp it in willing with it. But to 
live through a will is of course in itself no satisfaction, no joy 
and no value ; yet only one more step is to be taken and we 
reach beauty. It is a decisive step, the step which gives mean- 
ing to our life and allows us to speak of a world at all. It is the 
act which constitutes the meaning of a world as against a mere 
dream and a chaos. Impressions come to us, but scattered im- 
pressions as such are never a world, and it is our share, it is our 
eternal share to decide whether we are satisfied with a scattered 
chaos of impressions or whether ours is a world which asserts 
its inner independence. 

If you decide that your experience is to you nothing but a 
dream, each impression, each suggestion, nothing but an impres- 
sion, nothing but a suggestion, without connection, without agree- 
ment, without mutual relation, then there is no need of asking 
whether there is anything valuable in the world, because you 
have no world. There is no need of thought then, there is no 
need for discussion, because there is nothing which lasts and 
nothing which is shared and nothing but a chaos of bits of which 
no one can reach the other. But if you decide to seek in this 
chaos a real world, then the constitution of that world is de- 
termined by the demand of your own seeking will, because noth- 
ing else can constitute that world but what you intend to 
understand as belonging to such a world. Vice versa, whatever 
your will requires as necessary to constitute a world is then 



130 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



acknowledged beforehand as a feature of the world which you 
are seeking. It belongs to the world and cannot be eliminated 
from it, however far you may be from having reached it. It is 
eternally bound up with the world, as long as the will is posited 
to affirm such a world at all and to transcend the chaos of 
dream-like impressions. 

Those absolute properties of the world are then for us no longer 
mere experiences, but they are the fulfilments of our own will to 
have a world, and every fulfilment of a will is a satisfaction. As 
this will to have a world is the one condition of the world which 
cannot be eliminated, therefore everything which constitutes the 
world as such offers an absolute satisfaction for every possible 
subject. Such satisfaction does not indeed depend upon the in- 
dividual desire of the one or the other, does not depend upon the 
chance situation of personalities, and is thus no satisfaction of a 
merely personal desire : in short, it is an over-personal enjoyment 
and thus an absolute value. The will for the pleasant object is 
different with every personality and with every experience. The 
will for a world which is more than a dream is the presupposi- 
tion for everyone whom we acknowledge at all as a subject. 
Whoever denies the decision in favor of a world has no longer 
any relation to our inquiry as to the constitution of this world ; 
whoever makes that decision, performs the step which leads from 
the chaos of experience to eternal values. 

Here we ask for one value of the world only, for that of beauty. 
We said the bits of experience come to us as suggestions for our 
will. Every color and every tone, every angle and every curve, 
every rhythm and every word has an expression which we un- 
derstand. If we now transcend these single suggestions with the 
aim to find a world, then our first demand must be that such ex- 
pression does not remain a chance experience without support 
and agreement. Our will to get a glimpse of a world is sat- 
isfied as soon as we discover that the one will which speaks to 
us finds an equal in another will, that the one demand is satis- 
fied by the agreement of another demand, that the purpose of the 
one line coincides with the purpose of the other line, that the de- 
sire of the one tone is harmonizing with the aim of the other tone, 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



that the striving of one word is welcomed by the desire of the 
other. It is a long way from the mutual sympathy of a few 
tones in a simple melody and of a few lines in a simple ornament 
to the complete harmony and unity of life and world, but it is a 
straight way without turning of the road. Wherever a mani- 
foldness of will is experienced, there every agreement of the 
various parts is the fulfilment of our demand for a non-chaotic, 
for a self-agreeing world, and thus satisfactory for every possible 
subject which wills a world, and thus eternally valuable. 

This value is then independent of the question whether this 
self-agreeing experience satisfies at the same time still other 
demands of merely personal character, and gives thus pleasure or 
relief from displeasure. The beautiful may be pleasant and 
agreeable but it is never beautiful because it is agreeable. It is 
beautiful because it is perfect, because every demand which is 
raised in its manifoldness is completely satisfied by the will of the 
other parts. The objective satisfaction resulting from the will to 
have such a perfect self-agreeing world is the only aesthetic atti- 
tude ; the subjective satisfaction resulting from the chance desires 
of the personality is the practical attitude which may change with 
every man and with every hour and which lies below the level of 
aesthetics. The absolute value of the beautiful as belonging to 
the eternal structure of the only possible world is thus also en- 
tirely independent from the empirical fact whether particular 
individuals are able to take this aesthetic attitude and are thus 
able to understand the beauty of the world. It may be that the 
will of the object does not reach their will, that they deal with 
the object merely as material for the fulfilment of their practical 
desires. Their individual inability cannot possibly interfere with 
the entirely different question as to the objective value of that 
which they do not understand. Whether the unmusical person 
finds that music is to him an agreeable noise or a disagreeable 
noise has no bearing on the beauty of music. He knows no 
music at all, but only sounds, and the pleasure or displeasure 
which these sounds stir up in him by organic sensations or asso- 
ciations is a by-product which has no internal relation to the 
striving of the great composers. Our life involves a manifoldness 



132 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



of attitudes towards the world. If we are to have a world at all, 
it must be ultimately the same world for all of us, but the world 
character of the experience can be reached in many ways. The 
aesthetic approach is only one. You may reach the world by 
merely ethical or logical attitudes, and a life may find its unity 
without taking an aesthetic attitude towards experience at all ; 
that surely does not interfere with the absolute value of the 
aesthetic completeness. 

I have said that the absence of aesthetic attitude does perhaps 
not necessarily mar that unity of life which we. all are seeking, 
but is not this unity of life itself such an ideal of completeness 
and harmony, and therefore ultimately an aesthetic value ? If we 
seek principles, we have indeed no right to overlook the fact that 
the aesthetic attitude is not at all confined to works of art, 
and that the artistic efforts of historic civilization only bring to a 
focus the same energies and attitudes with which we meet the 
world in its natural flow. It would be a mere quarreling about 
words if we were unwilling to speak about beauty where the experi- 
ence has not been reshaped by the genius of the artist. Are we 
not accustomed to speak of the beauty of the sunset and of our 
aesthetic attitude towards the ocean ? We have no right to avoid 
the word when the same conditions are fulfilled in other spheres 
of experience. I do not hesitate to claim that friendship and 
love and peace in mankind are aesthetic values, yes that the unity 
of ourselves, that every inner completeness, that every happiness 
has its true meaning in its aesthetic perfection. 

Indeed for a moment let us abstract ourselves from that sys- 
tematic heightening of the world completeness by the means of 
art, and let us evaluate the immediate beauty of life. There are 
three spheres of experience for everyone. There is a world of 
outer objects, there is a world of other subjects, there is a world 
of the own inner personality. The scientist would like to substitute 
for those outer impressions the physical things and for the inner 
purposes he would substitute the psychological phenomena : we 
know that both lead us away from immediate reality. But still 
more are we removed from real life when science makes us believe 
that those other personalities come to us as physical objects, as 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



133 



organisms, into which we introject mental phenomena by analogy 
with our introspection. In the life experience from which we 
start, other people come to us as subjects of will, as personalities 
with whom we agree or disagree, whose attitudes we understand 
and who are not at all in question as objects. If thus our origi- 
nal experience is restituted and freed from the reminiscences of a 
remodelling physics and psychology, then the world becomes for 
us a world of suggestions through outer impressions, a world of 
demands through other personalities, a world of purposes in our 
inner life. Every one of these three groups may show us inner 
agreement and unity. 

If the purposes of the outer impressions harmonize, we have 
the aesthetic value of natural beauty ; if the will of the various per- 
sonalities harmonizes, we have the aesthetic value of love in all 
its shadings ; if the totality of our inner demands is in harmony, 
we have the aesthetic value of happiness. Now we easily see 
why beauty of nature is to us a rare experience. It is possible 
only when nature suggests to us its own will and thus makes us 
feel with her desires and intentions, with her excitements and 
rhythms ; and that again can be realized only when those outer 
impressions do not come in question for us as starting points for 
action and as material for the satisfaction of our personal de- 
mands. If we fight with the waves of the ocean, they are 
to us only a dangerous object ; they have no meaning to us be- 
cause our personal interest demands from us that we treat those 
impressions in their causal connectiveness and thus as non-living 
physical objects. But if we stand on the safe rock, each wave 
and the foam of the surf suggests to us impulse and energy and 
we feel the perfect symphony and the mutual agreement of the 
acts of the excited ocean. It is not an abstract idea which nature 
tells us and still less a moral, it is nothing which stands mystically 
behind nature ; that which is expressed is the energy and the 
strength and the impulse, the excitement of the colors and of 
the lines and of the rhythms and of the sounds. Whether any 
such element of nature is comforting to ourselves or painful, is 
agreeably tickling or disagreeable, does not influence the beauty 
of nature. Beauty demands only that we feel ourselves into the 



134 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



will of nature and that we find a fulfilment of each desire in the 
agreement which the other parts of nature offer. Or course, the 
richer the manifoldness of such will, the more intense the beauty 
of the landscape. 

It is not otherwise when we understand the mutual agreement 
of a human manifold. If two personalities agree in friendship or 
millions of wills are harmonized in peace, it is not at all the 
question whether such will satisfies our own personal desires ; no, 
the value lies here again entirely in the fact that two are agreeing 
and that the chaotic state of experience has thus been organized 
into that unity of will which means the world. Wherever two 
wills are felt by us as one, there something absolutely valuable 
speaks to us and its harmony has entered into the eternal meaning 
of the world. Love and harmony of souls, devotion and peace, 
are misplaced in the system of values if they are classified, as they 
usually are, among the ethical virtues. That two souls unite in 
love and that their will becomes one, without struggle and with- 
out resistance, following the deepest impulse of their will, cannot 
have any moral value. It has no right to claim ethical praise ; 
but it is endlessly beautiful and the world is eternally richer by 
such perfect harmony of personalities. 

But still more is this misplacement habitual with the aesthetic 
value of happiness. Utilitarian ethics, using vaguely the word 
happiness for mere pleasure, has always tried to smuggle happi- 
ness into the system of morality. Idealistic ethics separated 
morality from happiness and believed therefore that it had to re- 
move happiness entirely from the world of absolute values. Cer- 
tainly happiness lies outside of the field of ethics, but an absolute 
value it is. It is the aesthetic completeness and harmony of our 
own strivings. Just for that reason it is endlessly more than, or 
rather something entirely different from, mere pleasure. The 
pleasure which satisfies my particular desire extinguishes the will. 
There is no longer any will when it is satisfied. True happiness 
wants the full richness of continuous striving, and yet the full 
agreement of all inner energies. There may be no value in any 
one of these particular desires, but their complete mutual har- 
mony constitutes our inner life as an absolute aesthetic value. 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



135 



The offerings of the outer world will thus the more enter into 
this happiness, the more they become themselves starting points 
for new and ever new demands and endeavors. Nature and the 
inner life of mankind offer us incessant gifts of beauty through their 
external harmony, through love and through happiness, and there 
is no human life into which never a ray of this perfection of the 
world penetrates. 

The history of civilization is the great human effort to realize 
systematically and to bring to consciousness the absolute values 
of the world. Science and religion, law and economics, each is 
serving that task for different groups of eternal values. It has 
been the function, of art to strive systematically towards the 
realization of aesthetic values. The fine arts do it with reference 
to the outer world, the literary arts with reference to the rela- 
tions of personalities, music with relation to the inner world ; thus 
we have the same three groups which we found in immediate 
life experience. The purpose of the visible arts is indeed to give 
us a piece of the outer world in such a way that we completely 
understand the mutual agreement of all the intentions in this 
given manifoldness, and feel thus in this single piece the eternal 
perfection of the universe. Every possible rule and principle of 
art can be deduced from a clear understanding of this ultimate 
aim of the artist. One demand stands in the foreground. To 
find an inner agreement in the outer world it must come to us as 
will, because only intentions can agree. Thus it must cease to 
be simply material for our practical work, simply object for our 
interest. It must therefore be cut off from the chain of practical 
events, it must not be the effect of previous or the cause of later 
happenings, it must be disconnected from the remainder of the 
world ; in short, it must be entirely isolated. The isolated alone 
eliminates every connection, and thus every practical attitude, and 
this isolation is reached by art. In the painted landscape there 
are no people behind the mountains, and the road does not lead 
beyond the frame ; the lion of marble cannot spring upon us ; the 
dying heroine on the stage does not expect that we rush to her 
help ; the persons of the novel will never interfere with our daily 
life. Art gives us isolation, and just for that reason our demand 



136 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



for complete agreement in that experience can be satisfied. 
Whether it will be satisfied completely depends upon the question 
whether we have a perfect work of art, whether a genius moulded 
the experience. 

This isolation alone constitutes the unreality of art. Of course, 
the bronze statue fills a real space just as much as a living man, 
and the Hamlet on the stage is even a real living man himself. 
It would also be misleading to say that the painting is unreal 
because it is not itself the real landscape but only a representa- 
tion of reality ; and that the novel is not itself the real love affair 
but only its report. No, the illustration of a natural history 
book or the historical biography are in the same way repre- 
sentations only, and yet they are not at all in question as unreal. 
That which is meant is rather this. To be unreal in the 
aesthetical sense means that the object of this experience does 
not transcend itself, does not awake any expectations for future 
changes or any reminiscences of previous stages. The waves in 
the painted ocean are not expected ever to move ; the hero in the 
marble monument is not expected ever to speak. No artistic 
experience points away from itself. It can never be grasped in 
a later stage and was never known in a previous one, and lacks by 
that all those characteristics which constitute the physical existence 
and in this sense the reality. 

In order to suppress in this way every expectation of practical 
connection many means are possible. The painter gives us 
nature in the richness of its colors but eliminates the third 
dimension. The two-dimensional landscape suggests to us still 
every impulse which its colors and forms and contents, its trees 
and meadows and people may express, but the wanderer on that 
meadow will never advance on his way. The expectation that 
he may advance is not destroyed because the painter was unable 
to reproduce the landscape in its plastic form, but the painter 
projected his landscape into the plane because he wanted to 
eliminate the expectation that the wanderer ever may advance. 
The sculptor keeps that third dimension but he eliminates the 
color ; the colored wax figure which deceives us and thus stimu- 
lates the expectation of movements, stands on a level far below 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



137 



real art. In the same way the poet uses rhythm and rhyme to 
exclude the expectation that his verses should be taken as reports 
of occurrences and of moods which enter into the chain of actions. 
Not otherwise the life on the stage. Its frame cuts off every 
expectation that those persons with their ambitions and their 
intrigues may have an existence beyond that which they show 
to us. 

This unreality of the artistic object detracts nothing from the 
richness of the experience. That which is superadded in the 
real object is only its pointing beyond itself. The unreal offering 
of art has thus never to deceive us with the illusion of reality, as 
such illusion would eliminate the aesthetic attitude. But such 
absence of reality does in no way put the unreal object on a 
lower level than the real object, as if something were lacking. 
The unreal is something entirely different but not at all less valu- 
able than the real. The usual predominance of our practical 
life interests may mislead us and may make us feel as if the real 
is positive and the unreal something negative, as if the unreal 
would become more valuable if reality might still be added. 
But with the same logical right, we might reverse the relation. 
The unreal is that which offers itself in its entirety, which is com- 
plete in itself and which thus needs no reference to anything be- 
yond itself. The real, on the other hand, has its meaning in the 
expectation which it awakens and in the connections which lead 
beyond its own limits. The experience of the real is therefore 
that which in itself is incomplete, in itself imperfect, in itself un- 
satisfactory. The real is then the negative and that which lives 
in art becomes the positive. The real in its incompleteness 
strives to reach by its development and changes and connection 
that self-perfection which belongs at once to the creation of the 
artistic genius. It is a one-sidedness in our view of the world 
if we usually presuppose that the reality character of the world 
is fundamental and the perfection character a rather accidental 
addition. With the same one-sided over-valuation, we might 
consider that which is united in itself, harmonizing and complete 
in itself and therefore beautiful, as the only true and valuable 
world ; it would then be an accidental side-fact that there are 



138 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



some experiences which have no perfection, but stir up expecta- 
tions of connection and have therefore scientific existence, and 
thus gain a certain value by their objective reality. 

If the visible arts bring out the inner harmony in the mani- 
foldness of nature, the literary arts deal with the will of man ; and 
as man's life has that threefold relation to the outer world, to the 
other men and to his own personality, we have three fundamental 
forms of literature. The epic narrates the hero's strivings in the 
outer world, the drama represents his relation to his fellowmen, 
and lyrics give expression to that experience of man which is 
bound up with his inner life. But in all three cases the poet gives 
us a manifoldness of excitements and intentions and purposes 
which is in complete agreement. Every sound of every vowel 
and every consonant, every rhythm and every line, every syllable 
and every word, every metaphor and every thought has there its 
own intention which resounds in us, its own will which we feel 
with it, and if they are all in harmony, the poem is perfect. Of 
course, that does not mean that literature deals only with men 
who stand in harmonious friendly relations with one another. 
On the contrary, the sharp conflict of antagonistic will belongs to 
the deepest meaning of the drama, and yet it has been said 
rightly that the true tragedy leaves no disharmony. That is the 
necessary difference between art and life; the conflict of personali- 
ties on the battlefield of life is disharmonious because all the 
practical connections are working, no unity is reached in such hos- 
tility. But the drama has cut off those relations, the manifold- 
ness which it offers is isolated through the frame of the stage, and 
in this limited manifoldness every single will serves perfectly the 
intention of the whole. The tragic conflict which wants to 
express itself demands the will of both the hero and his enemy. 
The will of the one has no meaning without the antagonistic will 
of the other. If we want the one we need the other, and thus 
they are all in perfect agreement, bound together in one unity. 
It is the same as in the fine arts ; the painter may create a perfect 
painting of complete beauty of which the content is the ugliest 
beggar. That which is ugly and disharmonious in nature and 
life may be the content of the most beautiful creation of art. As 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



139 



soon as the expression of this dirty beggar is recognized as the 
purport of the offering complete harmony is reached, if every 
line and every color every movement of the figure and every 
suggestion of the background agrees in bringing out this aim 
The unreal content can thus reach complete unity of experience 
where the same manifoldness felt as reality would be disharmoni- 
ous and repulsive. 

The harmony of our inner movements, which in the reality of 
life comes to us in moments of complete happiness, is reached in 
art by the experience of music. The tones do not describe and. 
do not depict anything. They only liberate our own self which 
may live itself out in the movements and rhythms, in the longings 
and fulfilments of the tones. To bring to us such rich inner 
emotion, we need the tone-material just because those tones are 
not things ; they have no practical value in the world, and 
while they come from instruments our attitudes do not refer to 
those external objects. Pictures and words speak to us of nature 
and other men, tones do not speak of anything. Their meaning 
is just their mutual relation which we feel and which thus fills 
our mind with an endless inner movement, with a striving and 
reaching, and yet all in that inner harmony of intentions which 
is the happiness of perfection. In music alone, in the completion 
of the simplest melody, in the unity of the simplest chord, com- 
plete repose is brought to us, and yet a repose not by lack of 
will, but by the complete equilibrium of over-rich inner excite- 
ment. Music thus expresses the harmony of ourselves, as poetry 
unveils the harmony of mankind, and fine art the harmony of 
nature. Yet this inner self is isolated again and cut loose from 
the practical emotions which may rush to our mind, because 
music substitutes the unreal world of tones for the real world of 
things. 

Thus art demands many factors. The manifoldness of the 
content must be unreal ; it must express a will ; this will must be 
important ; this will must be felt by us ; our own will must be 
extinguished ; every relation to anything beyond the content 
must be cut off ; the whole must be entirely isolated ; it must 
have its own form ; this form must harmonize with the content ; 



140 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 

all the suggestions of the parts of form and content must agree 
with the aim of the whole. But all these factors are not found 
there together by chance ; they are all controlled by the one 
fundamental aim of art, that the internal agreement of the experi- 
enced manifold shall come to expression. Only because we seek 
agreement, we must understand it as will ; only to understand 
the will of the experience, we must eliminate our own personal 
will ; to eliminate our personal will, the experience must be 
cut off from the world and be isolated and thus unreal : if this 
isolated will-manifold is in perfect unity, we have a work of 
beauty. This unity of will, on the other hand, represents an 
absolute value, as we have recognized from the start. If the will 
which comes to us as a suggestion is to be more than a chance 
flash, is to be the expression of something self-dependent and 
self-existing, in short, of a world, it must agree in itself, and only 
as far as it agrees with itself has it a meaning which is more than 
a chaotic dream. We want to reach in our experience such a 
self-asserting world, or else every discussion about the world is 
by principle meaningless. We receive, therefore, the single ex- 
perience with a demand for an identical intention in the other parts 
of the given manifold, and when the identity is found, we are 
satisfied. But as this satisfaction refers entirely to the impersonal 
demand for a world, a demand which necessarily belongs to every 
subject as a subject, this satisfaction is over-personal ; the iden- 
tity of will in the factors which constitute a work of art is thus 
valuable in an over-personal sense ; it is an absolute value. As 
such it is entirely independent from the other question whether 
the whole artistic work or parts of it satisfy at the same time a 
personal demand for pleasant feelings and agreeable advantages. 
The work of art may be pleasant but it ought to be beautiful. 
That the world demonstrates its self-assertion through the inner 
harmony of its will expressions, is a demand which constitutes the 
meaning of every possible subject that seeks a world. The satis- 
faction of this demand must thus be a general and necessary value ; 
there cannot be a subject which does not acknowledge this value; 
there cannot be a world without this value. Our personal 
pleasures vary and may pass by ; the value of beauty is eternal. 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY, 



141 



From this highest point, we easily see the fundamental differ- 
ence between aesthetic and logical value. They lie in opposite 
directions and yet the ultimate principle is the same. The satis- 
faction of the logical demand is another fulfilment of the same 
postulate. The subject wants to transcend the chaotic flashes 
of experience. From the chaos he reaches out for a world which 
asserts itself. In beauty we found it by the mutual agreement 
of the parts of a manifold. But this same self-assertion of the 
world can be reached in an opposite way : if we do not consider 
the manifold and the identity of the aims in its parts but if we 
consider the single experience and seek its identity in new and 
ever new situations of life. That alone is the logical attitude. 
In immediate life experience, w r e reach by such logical act at once 
the values of practical existence, of objective reality. We hold 
the single experience of the outer world and seek now its identity 
in the experiences of other subjects or in new experience of our 
own. The impression is thus constitutive of a physical thing. Or 
we meet a suggestion and we understand the will which expresses 
itself there as identical with a will in other experiences, and we 
constitute by it the existence of a personality. Or we meet in 
ourselves an experience of will and again we find it not fleeting 
but recognize it as identical in every new experience, and we then 
constitute it as a really existing norm. Things, persons, and 
norms are thus experiences to which we give the value of 
objective existence. But this again is an absolute value because 
it is again the satisfaction of the over-personal demand that the 
single momentary flash of experience remain identical with itself 
and that thus a world is with us. 

Just as the aesthetic attitude was leading from natural beauty 
and love and happiness to those artificial creations of civilization 
in our art, in the same way the logical attitude leads from the 
mere, immediate values of existence and reality to the systematic 
efforts of civilization which we call science. Yet the logical atti- 
tude remains the same. Knowledge is a systematic reconstruc- 
tion by which every thing and every person and every norm is 
understood as remaining identical with itself throughout every 
possible experience. For that purpose the things are linked into 



142 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 



a chain of causal events which make up the physical universe, 
the personalities are embedded in history, the norms are set 
into logical systems. Whether we deal with physics or with 
history or with mathematics, it is an endless remolding of ex- 
perience until everything is transformed into a system of identi- 
ties, until the universe is made up of indestructible atoms which 
remain identical with themselves or energies which cannot dis- 
appear. Science must thus connect these experiences until 
everything is a part of the systematic whole in which it can as- 
sert itself as identical with itself, while art isolates the experiences 
and cuts off all the relations of the one given manifold from the 
remainder of the world. 

The aesthetical value of beautiful unity and the logical value of 
connected existence are thus equally fulfilments of the over-per- 
sonal, absolute demand for the self-realization of a world in this 
chaotic experience. Our insight into such connections makes 
us, of course, able to calculate from that which is given that 
which is not yet experienced, that which is to be expected, that 
which thus becomes important for the practical deed. Our appre- 
ciation of beauty never leads beyond the given manifold, and is, 
therefore, useless for practical purposes, but it teaches us to under- 
stand the inner meaning of the world. As our knowledge thus 
offers us the vehicles for practical success, we subordinate our- 
selves to science and through our subordination we master the 
world. Beauty we serve by devotion, but in surrendering our- 
selves to it, we overcome the world and liberate ourselves from its 
struggles and griefs ; for the service of beauty demands that we feel 
with the will of nature and inhibit the chance will of our own. 
Through our service to knowledge, we grasp the self-assertion of 
the world by the everlasting identity of each single element ; in the 
service to beauty, we grasp the self-assertion of the world in the 
identity of purposes in a given manifold. The real value lies in 
both cases in this recognition of the identity, in this fulfilment of 
the demand for a more than flash-like experience, in the grasping 
of a world through a chaos. 

The self-agreement of the world in real beauty does not con- 
tradict the fact that its whole or its parts may satisfy also individ- 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY. 



143 



ual desires, may tickle our senses, may give us a pleasant feeling 
of play, may carry agreeable memories ; the beautiful is then at 
the same time pleasant. The same relation holds for the logical 
values ; also their real meaning lies in that fulfilment of the abso- 
lute postulate for a self-identical world ; and their value is thus 
over-personal and absolute. But the fact that the discovered con- 
nections which lead from the present experience to new ones 
must help us for the calculation of the future and thus for partic- 
ular achievements, gives to knowledge, too, a pleasant individual 
effect. The individual demand for personal advantage can be 
satisfied. The absolute logical value may thus be coupled with 
a relative value of practical advantageousness just as the absolute 
aesthetic value is coupled with the relative value of agreeableness. 
But as the pleasant tickling of our senses does never constitute 
the real meaning of beauty, so the pleasant experience of advan- 
tage does never constitute the real value of truth. 

It would lead us too far to ask in what other ways the postu- 
late for a world which asserts itself, and is thus in unity with 
itself, may be fulfilled. We should then have to turn first of all 
to the identity between intention and action. We should there 
easily see that every progress in the universe and every moral 
self-realization involve just this fundamental harmony. Yes, 
we might see that nothing else is the ultimate meaning of law 
and technical civilization. And finally we should recognize that 
the world is after all not a self-asserting reality, if the demand 
for identity has led to such different worlds as the world of inner 
agreement in beauty, the world of systematic connection in truth, 
the world of self-realization in morality. They all demand ab- 
solute value without being united among one another. And 
therefore the postulate for a world involves a last value by which 
all these valuable worlds themselves are recognized as agreeing 
and ultimately identical. This last over-personal demand is ful- 
filled by the belief in a transcendent will through which the 
world of aesthetic happiness, of logical existence, and of moral 
striving are recognized as one ; then we have religion. And if 
this ultimate self-identity is recognized by going not beyond ex- 
perience, but by grasping that ultimate act through which the 



/ 



144 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [Vol. XVIII. 

over-personal will in us posits at all the absoluteness of beauty, 
truth and morality, we have philosophy. 

Indeed, only if we take this last step, is philosophy in question. 
To recognize beauty and truth and morality and religion in their 
eternal meaning as the deeds of our over-personal will is a true 
philosophic endeavor. To deal with the pleasant feelings which 
beauty awakens is nothing but a psychological research, world- 
far from philosophy. And just where this psychological inquiry 
into the pleasantness of beauty has its place, there belongs also 
the much favored study of the advantageous effects which truth 
may have for us, or the inquiry into the usefulness which moral 
actions may have, or into the comfort which the consolations of re- 
ligion may carry to the individual mind. They are all psychol- 
ogy, untouched by the philosophical problem. 

To say that such endeavors are psychological and move in a 
sphere where nothing can be gained for philosophy certainly does 
not imply that they are not highly important. To examine the 
individual and social, physiological and psychological effects of 
beautiful creations, of truthful propositions, or moral self-denial, 
and of religious inspiration is certainly a large part of scientific 
knowledge, and everybody will accept the results as long as such 
questions are not confused with the entirely different problem of 
what beauty and truth and morality and religion mean, and in 
what their value consists. Those psychological questions must, 
of course, be answered by the means of empirical science ; biol- 
ogy, psychology, and sociology have to contribute. In the spirit 
of these memorial days in which our association gladly takes part 
in celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Origin of Species, 
I point to the wide perspectives which have been opened by the 
genius of Darwin. The importance which belongs to the evolu- 
tion of the aesthetic excitement cannot be overestimated. In the 
moral field, those social groups must survive which are held to- 
gether by strong altruistic feelings or which are strengthened in 
their struggle for existence by intense religious belief. Above 
all in the logical field, we see clearly that those individuals must 
survive whose brains produce ideas which can be used for advan- 
tageous actions. The survival of the useful ideas is one of the 



No. 2.] 



THE PROBLEM OF BE A UT\ . 



145 



most immediate consequences of Darwinism in physiological psy- 
chology. And from there it is only one step to the interesting 
and stimulating studies in social psychology which are called 
pragmatism. 

But all these valuable studies are parts of knowledge and thus 
have themselves a meaning only in reference to the ideal of truth, 
to the ideal of remolding the chaos into a system of self-asserting 
identities. That fundamental, over-personal, world-positing act 
which gives value to truth precedes thus the acknowledgment of 
every particular group of truths. In our search for absolute 
truth we construct science and in the midst of science for certain 
logical purposes we must choose a standpoint from which every 
human function, even truth-seeking, appears as a psychological 
phenomenon, and thus individual and relative. From such a 
standpoint everything absolute must impress us as unreal, incon- 
sistent and grotesque. The absolute is then a kind of monstrous 
world-lump behind the clouds. To fight against such a concep- 
tion of the absolute is an effort in which pragmatism is certainly 
on the right side, but it is an effort which ought to appear 
superfluous in any philosophy after Kant. Pragmatism in logic 
and in aesthetics alike, if taken as philosophy, not as psychology, 
is the latest pre-Kantian answer to a pre-Kantian problem. The 
absolute which idealism is seeking in beauty as in truth is not a 
ready-made world behind experience ; it is a rule, it is a law, it 
is a norm, which binds our will if we are to have a world at all 
and the realization of which belongs thus to the eternal structure 
of our experience, if it is to become a world. 

Let us do honor to Darwin, last century's leader in the study 
of scientific facts, and let us in his spirit acknowledge that every 
physical and psychical thing in the world, biological species and 
psychological truths, have their origin and their development and 
their ending ; and thus their merely relative value. But let us 
philosophers not forget that the same century gave us Fichte's 
idealism. There is no conflict between these two views which 
are equally consistent in themselves. To be sure, if we raise the 
natural science of body or of mind to the dignity of a last philos- 
ophy, then we can never reach an absolute value, and a conflict 



146 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. 



must arise. But if we recognize that science itself depends upon 
an absolute deed and an absolute value, then all conflict disappears. 
Idealism can embrace scientific truth in its totality without dis- 
turbing it ; yes, idealism alone can secure to it freedom and safety. 
The value of the pragmatic doctrine of relative truths and beauties 
is dependent upon the absolute value of beauty and truth. Darwin- 
ism and pragmatism and every relativism can and must enter into 
absolute idealism : the origin of species and the eternity of values 
belong together. 

Hugo Munsterberg. 

Harvard University. 



iiiififiiH^ 

028 940 772 8 



LIBRAR 




iiimii:miiiiiniii . 

0 028 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




0 028 940 772 8 • 



